Axis Calibration: The Thing Einstein Forgot - Digital Download

by Thomas E. Phipps, Jr.

This 6-page paper was published in Issue 38 (2001).

Abstract: We suggest that in 1905 Einstein was careless about the calibration of his spatial coordinate axes, and that this oversight has never since been corrected by relativists or logicians. In special relativity we find that longitudinal acceleration of a measuring rod "deconstructs" it, with the consequence that there exists no reference frame in which it is at all times measured as stress-free (i.e., as qualified to serve as a metric standard). An alternative theory is outlined that corrects this by restoring classical rigidity as a permissible idealization. This theory necessarily alters both electromagnetism and kinematics in complementary ways.